Getting a Technology System in Modern Day - Chapter 1019

Capítulo 1019: The Nightmare on the Erythians

“Oh, god,” one of the billions of humans watching whispered as he saw a massive, moon-sized space station falling toward a habitable planet. Although it was an enemy planet, it still weighed on him to watch it happen, knowing the number of lives that would be lost if it continued on its current trajectory.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!

An explosion, bright enough to flashbang everyone watching, erupted on the screen. Before anyone, whether they felt sorry for the enemy or looked forward to the extinction event, could fully process the scene, the space station was instantly turned into the brightest object in the sky. One of the approaching military ships had nuked it. This was a difficult decision, deemed the action that would cause the fewest casualties. The ships immediately began shooting down the smaller pieces, focusing on those falling toward the planet in cooperation with the planetary defense installations, which were now painting the sky with their fire.

The same thing was happening on the other planets, with the only difference being the timing of the intervention. Stations that were still a safe distance away were evacuated of their inhabitants and critical materials as much as possible before being shot down.

At the same time, the moment this method of attack was realized, they immediately raised the orbits of all space stations to hundreds of thousands of kilometers. This would make them easier to deal with if the empire gained control of them again, even with their control systems taken offline.

Once again, the method of attack was different. This forced another inconvenient course of action across the top ten civilizations, who now had to move their assets out of the optimal locations they had previously chosen for maximum efficiency.

With the first two attacks originating from the digital front, they decided to remove or incapacitate all possible access points the empire could have. They forced all of their critical infrastructure to be examined before moving to offline operations as a cautionary measure. The scale of the first two attacks, which occurred before they had even faced the imperial forces directly, had scared them. This move would reduce the efficiency and speed at which they could operate and solve minor problems, but the trade-off was confidence. Even if the empire had previously gained access, the scale of any future attack would be reduced to a level of loss they could stomach.

They hated being in a passive situation, unable to do anything but wait for the imperial forces to come to them. They had little experience with waiting, as they were used to being the ones who put others in such a predicament. They were all seething with anger as the empire’s actions made it clear that they were inferior to the small empire they had previously looked down upon and had the confidence to initiate a war against.

Amidst their escalating anger, another five hours passed, and a third attack commenced. This time, instead of a technological one, it was biological. But instead of hitting one of the Yrall Coalition star systems like the previous two, it targeted the civilization that would be the most damaged by it: the Erythians.

A virus targeting the DNA base code of their bioengineered monsters started spreading in one of their production star systems. It targeted just a few specific lines of code, incapacitating any bioengineered monster, leaving them conscious but unable to move. It appeared to be airborne and capable of multiplying. One by one, the monsters started falling. On the planet where they were being produced, it felt like a wave; monsters in a storage facility began to fall like dominoes, and before long, nearly a million of them in that facility had collapsed.

Before they could deduce if the biological attack was limited to that storage area, they received an answer. Monsters in different areas started experiencing the same symptoms. The moment one of them fell, all the others in that area also followed, making it obvious that it spread through close contact and the air. Fortunately, it was not harmful to any other intelligent life form.

……………..

“What is the fucking cause? How did they reach the monsters that were already on the ships?” the leader of the Erythians shouted after receiving the report, as the casualties were still mounting.

“We suspect that only a single batch was infected, and it spread from there to all the monsters that came into contact with or were in the vicinity of that batch. From then on, it cascaded. Even our soldiers who were near these monsters during transport carried and spread it. Since it is only harmful to the monsters and likely had an incubation period, we have yet to know how long ago this happened or which batch was the source. It might not have been spread directly to a batch, but through one of our people, and from them, it spread until it reached the monsters. It could have been years or just a few months ago. We don’t really know, which makes us blind to the scale of the infection,” the man reporting was the head of the department responsible for the research and production of the monsters, meaning this oversight was entirely his responsibility, and he would be the one punished for it.

“What do you mean you don’t know yet? You started as if you were confident,” the leader asked, pointing out how the man was now complicating his explanation as if coming up with answers in real-time.

“There are two theories. The first is that a spy infiltrated our production facility and spread it to a batch. The second is that the empire infected one of the envoys, the mana stones cargo, VR devices, or anything that would eventually come in contact with one of our people, who would then spread it until it reached the monsters or someone in close proximity to them. These are the only two possible ways, but the first one is the least likely since we would have found something weird in our production plants during our regular checks…”

Before he could finish his Hail Mary explanation, his communication node beeped, informing him of an update. He immediately stopped speaking and started reading. With each paragraph, goosebumps spread across his body as he was stricken by fear.

“What does it say?” the leader asked impatiently as the silence in the room extended.

“It looks like our second hypothesis is correct. All of the soldiers in our fleets who we have scanned for this specific virus have been discovered to have it. Although it is only twenty percent of our forces and we are continuing with the tests on the remaining forces, we can say with confidence that the virus was spread through contact with one of our people. As for the trigger, it looks like the empire used a mana signature to end its incubation period and activate it,” the man said, his voice shaking with fear at how efficient the empire was.